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Chapter 18 - A Most Divided Planet

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There's something rather amusing about being at home and not feeling at home.

Maybe it was because I spent too long handling other civilizations and I kind of lost touch with my own humanity to the point that Earth was just a new but familiar planet. Or maybe it was the time period in which we wounded up arriving at. I could clearly remember that would have happened around the 21st Century, but we were clearly in the 20th Century.

It was 1970. Nixon had just entered his presidency for a year and Leonid Brezhnev has been in charge of the Soviet Union for six. Many in my position would eagerly try to do a lot of things to 'smooth history out'. To uplift however they wished from the get-go. But I... I was relatively quiet about it all.

Nokris was busy taking notes on what may be intimidating for humans and what to be wary about in regards to the two major alliances of the time while also organizing a meeting with the UN after the Traveler made first contact after 'landing' in the middle of Africa.

Where everyone earnestly followed the steps needed for First Contact and the news of aliens arriving on Earth was spreading like wildfire, I was busy appearing in two distinct households, away from the gazes of anyone as I spied upon two different scenes.

One saw a family of four with two parents and two daughters. The youngest was merely two years-old, happily bouncing from her father's lap as the man, a proud hard worker in a middle-poor family, strived to provide as much love and effort as possible.

I blinked at his body, the man merely feeling a soft grasp as a thin layer of unease within his mind and body was no longer there. His smile widened as he continued to play with his two daughters.

The next scene saw another family, this one made by five members. They weren't at home together at the time, both parents out for work, the youngest one, a girl, playing with friends in her room; the oldest somewhere else in town and... the second-born son was sitting on a bench in the park. Alone.

I blinked again, having a ball from the nearby group of kids playing roll by the feet of the bespectacled boy. The group of children would notice him, the youth shy as he was asked to play with them. After some coaxing, the book he had been reading had been set aside and the boy was happily making friends.

Once I was done with these two scenes, I could finally take a lonely walk through the path of where my home would then be built. My old home, the home of my human self. I had much to think over what I have done, but I didn't regret any of that. It was odd to say, but it was for the best my parents never met.

Both came from difficult homes, both had some dreadful hardships and both would suffer each other while in the marriage as they faced hurdles after hurdles. The only shame was that depriving the world of my birth meant that my sister would also not be born.

It was a shame indeed, but it was a necessary one.

The paradoxical potential of that circumstance was too worrisome to ignore, so I took steps to avoid any repercussions in this timeline. I would say I didn't expect for my return to Earth to be one I was already coming to dislike. After all, as it came the date to speak at the UN, it was clear that some shady businesses going behind those major governments that represented Earth's interests were planning to do something.

Two 'accidents' occurred where kidnappers tried to get their hands on some representative of the Federation. Turns out that they were quickly apprehended when I just followed them around and had their position monitored through their attempts.

To say that this opened a huge diplomatic issue would be an understatement. I had warned Nokris that he was to expect a degree of greed from humans, but he was clearly shocked by the extent it got at just mere days into trying to make a positive first contact only for Cold War-tier Espionage make such a massive blunder.

And when I say blunder, I don't mean war. I mean that our next step was actually overruling the UN and trying our luck with the African countries. All countries was given a choice to join an African Federation with the hope of receiving proper democracy, representation, technology to handle terraformation and so on.

The media was instantly on us for this attempt, calling it an 'alien colonization' but... the truth was that Africa had been shackled for so long, that the locals of the various regions in the continent could tell this was a good deal. Most of the countries agreed to form a superstate with their representatives working together to handle potential internal issues so that they could receive support to uplift their countries.

France soon saw its former colonial empire ditching its roots from Paris, Portugal's colonies of Mozambique and Angola were given support to push away the Portuguese troops fighting against their independentists and... South Africa rejected to 'cooperate with their lessers'.

Apartheid was going to be a bitch to deal with, but there were plans to face that in due time. For now, the formation of the vast Federation was the priority as the world was given proof of our good faith through our own deeds. While the Western World tried to push back through 'legal' and 'reasonable' circumstances, the USSR was less talkative and more active in their retaliation with Brezhnev suggesting that a 'nuclear retaliation' was not out of question if the Union was attacked.

Defcon 2 was definitely there up to that point, but it went back to Defcon 5 when I replied through a world-wide announcement in regard to the African Federation's program and administration, letting out a response towards Moscow.

Nukes can't harm us. Our ships have strong enough shields to endure the worst your armaments can provide. Not only that, but we will not even consider declaring war on your country in that regard. We will just target those that tried to plunge their nations into a war they can't win.

The message was sent, and I was surprised when I got praises from the Non-Aligned Movement. Hell, Yugoslavia even approached us with a plan to 'liberalize' the country in exchange of major improvements to its economy and social circumstances.

This game of chess the Soviets and the US were trying to play with us was... not a thing. Not when we were the ones that could flip the board and get away with it.

AN

Ah yes, the Cold War. The Crooked One and the Stagnant One are trying to be at odds with the Oracle and... they do be losing immensely because of it.